1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a method and system of monitoring the usage of a swipe card, such as those used in financial transactions. More particularly, the invention relates to monitoring the swipes of the magnetic strip or embedded chip included in credit cards, debit cards, identification cards and the like.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
Contemporary credit, debit, identification, pass-key and even cash cards use magnetic strips that maintain encoded information for authenticating and identifying the user of a card. In addition to a traditional magnetic strip that holds information, often these cards further contain an embedded integrated circuit, which can process information. A card including such an integrated circuit is often referred to as a smart card, chip card or integrated circuit card (ICC). These ICC's include an embedded integrated circuit that can process information. This implies that the ICC can receive input which is processed—by way of ICC applications—and delivered as an output.
While contemporary swipe cards can accessibly store account and/or identification information, they are incapable of providing a count of the number of times the card has been swiped. It being understood that a swipe of a swipe card generally involves passing the card near or through an electronic device which reads magnetically encoded information thereon. Thus, it is desirable to provide a swipe card capable of registering and accessibly storing a swipe count. Also, it is desirable to provide a method and system of monitoring usage of a swipe card by using a swipe count from a swipe card.